Af2 eyes city as locale for team

Indoor football could return to arena by 2007

The Corpus Christi Hammerheads won't be back in the American Bank
Center, but it looks like some sort of indoor football will return.

Jerry Kurz - president of af2, a development league for the Arena
Football League - toured the arena and city Tuesday and said he'd like
to bring an expansion team to Corpus Christi in time for the 2007
season, which likely would begin in March.

The af2 is one of several indoor football leagues looking to fill
the void created earlier in the month when the American Bank Center
announced it would not renew the Hammerheads' lease.

"This is a great building - it's as good as any building in the
af2," Kurz said. "Corpus Christi is such a great place that they have
an opportunity to choose what they want. We know we're the best league,
but it's got to be a two-way street. We want to be here, and we want
the city to want us to be here."

Kurz says he plans to release the af2's 2007 schedule in mid-October
and needs to know by the end of the month if he should pencil Corpus
Christi into that schedule.

"(Af2) is excited, and they're certainly putting pressure on me,"
American Bank Center general manager Marc Solis said. "We like what we
see, and I'm cautiously optimistic that we can make this work."

Af2's ties to the Arena Football League, whose national TV deal with
NBC expired after last season, makes it the most stable option.
However, other leagues - including the National Indoor Football League,
which the Hammerheads played in two years ago - have shown interest in
coming to Corpus Christi, also.

"(af2) is legitimate," Solis said. "They're a real league, and the
stability is there. They're going on their eighth year now, and the AFL
is going on its 22nd year. We like that stability."

Last season, the af2 had 24 teams that stretched from Spokane,
Wash., to Albany, N.Y., and could expand to as many as 30 teams this
season. The league is looking to add expansion teams in Corpus Christi,
Laredo, Lubbock and Katy to go along with its current Texas teams in
Amarillo and Hidalgo.

The af2 game is played under the same rules as the AFL, which
differed slightly from the IFL. Unlike the IFL, the af2 has rebound
nets behind both goalposts, keeping kickoffs in play and providing
runbacks after missed field goals. The af2 also forces more players to
play on both sides of the ball. Every offensive player must also play
defensive except the quarterback and an offensive specialist, which is
usually a receiver.

Doug MacGregor, president of the AFL's Austin Wranglers, said the
af2 would bring the same excitement fans saw with AFL games broadcast
on NBC.

"It's the same game, and the talent level is excellent," MacGregor
said. "In Austin, if we put two af2 teams out on the field one game,
the fans wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

MacGregor would help a local af2 team get off the ground, but the
team would be locally owned.

Kurz said he's in talks with three different Corpus Christi groups
that could purchase the expansion franchise.

"We insist on having local ownership, and we have that in every
market," Kurz said. "The Austin group would be a part of it to make
sure the structure of the franchise is in place and to make sure the
team has enough resources to thrive, but it would be run locally."